Jason Ferruggia, of http://www.relentless-athletics.com and http://www.jasonferruggia.com
The product being reviewed is Fit to Fight: An Insanely Effective Strength and Conditioning Program for the Ultimate MMA Warrior by Jason Ferruggia
Jason Ferruggia is one of the most highly regarded strength and conditioning coaches in the fitness industry. For more than a decade, Jason has provided countless MMA and other athletes with cutting-edge training programs, helping them gain in muscular size, strength, speed, and overall performance. Ferruggia is a regular contributor to Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, MMA Sports Mag, and many other publications. He lives in New Jersey.
What does this product claim?
Discover the secrets of an Elite Combat Coach
Ultimate Fighting, or Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), is America’s fastest-growing sport, but most training methods are still stuck in the dark ages. To many would-be combatants use training programs borrowed from football or bodybuilding that are all wrong from MMA. This is an intense sport, where fighterstake a real pounding – they have the be ready for anything. ARE YOU?
In FIT TO FIGHT, top strength and conditioning coach Jason Ferruggia reveals the ultimate training program for the ultimate fighter. He’ll help you develop the kind of endless endurance, blinding takedown speed, and jawbreaking knockout power that will render your opponent helpless.
Coach Ferruggia’s Program Includes:
-Dozens of exercises to help build the ripped, powerful physique of an unstoppable champion
-Highly guarded speed training secrets that will help you develop catlike quickness and explosive striking power
-Rarely seen warrior training methods like tire flips, keg presses, and sandbag throws
-Insanely effective body-weight circuits and barbell complexes that will challenge (or humiliate) even the fittest fighters.
Since combat warrior need to pay strict attention to diet, Coach Ferruggia also includes a detailed nutrition plan designed to keep you healthy and energetic-you’ll build muscle while burning body fat. And what about supplements? Don’t waste another cent on them until you’ve read chapter 7 – Ferruggia cuts through the hype and gives you the real deal on what works and what doesn’t.
Challenging your overall strength, stamina, speed, and flexibility, Fit to Fight will prepare you with the tools you need to leave your opponent tapped out and sucking wind.
That bit is the text from the rear page of the book
Where can I get it and how much does it cost?
$13.57 @ Amazon, similarly priced many other places online. $19.99 in your local bookstore (I see it at Barnes and Nobles)
Review:
Layout\Format
Paperback book. Black and white photos. 206 pages with a full index in the back. As an aside, I’d like to state here that this book is essentially a rewrite of Ferruggia’s 2004 e-book entitled “TapOut”. A significant amount of the book are just quick rewrites of the “TapOut” material. There is very little that is new here.
Does it do what it says?
No. Look at the quote above. Makes your pulse race a bit doesn't it? You've got your hands on some hot info. Sadly, this book falls far short of it's ad copy and the rave reviews Ferruggia's buddies have given it. If you endorsed this book saying it's shit-hot and busts open the conventional training methods of MMA athletes everywhere, then you're full of shit and just endorsing a buddy of yours, or maybe a member of your marketing "circle jerk."
This book is, at best, a short introduction to “modern” training methods. There is nothing new in this book, nor is anything covered in depth.
Let’s take a look at the table of contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1- The Characteristics of a Successful Combat Athlete
2- Reduce Your Risks: Assessments and Injury Prevention
3- Combat Conditioning: Building Your Anaerobic Endurance
4- Strongman Training
5- Kick-Ass Speed and Strength
6- Combat Nutrition: Food to Fight
7- Supplements: Substance and the Scams
8- Picking Up the Pieces: Recovery and Regeneration
Resources
Index
This seems to be pretty comprehensive, but I’d describe it almost like a “book report” on each topic, except, of course, the inclusion of the traditional exercise catalogue, which takes up a significant portion of the book.
Sample Workouts:
Included are 2 bodyweight calisthenic circuits, 3 barbell complexes, and a 4 phase workout, each phase including 3 days of specific training recommendations for the development of strength and power. The circuits and complexes are examples of the sorts of things you can find online, and the strength and power training looks like a fairly typical example of a 3x weekly full body strength and power workout.
Sample Diets:
There are two sample days of a diet provided. Both built around natural foods. Again, nothing you can't find online. Not bad, but not cutting edge.
The bottom line for this book is that it’s an overview of modern training methods that MMA fighters might use. I found very little that I didn’t know, and hadn’t seen somewhere else in another training book or online somewhere. This is not a book full of details and secret training methods.
People ask me why I hate
This book is a perfect example of why I hate. It's a very mediocre book, yet has been hyped by many big names in the fitness industry. Ferruggia relates stories in this book that I can only describe as "whining", in particular the passages about his high school wrestling career, and how the types of workouts that have worked for wrestlers for 50+ years didn't work for him, and won't work for you either. In another amusing passage he uses the old hack of comparing long distance runners with sprinters. Content-wise, he completely ignores the reason why almost every professional fighter included traditional road-work or cardio in their program. If you don't know why, read Lyle's last few blog posts.
In another annoying trend, Ferruggia drops names of professional MMA fighters often and with great abandon, in some kind of cheap tactic to somehow associate himself with them. I see very little evidence that Ferruggia has trained successful MMA athletes with some fairly intensive Googling.
To me this type of product cheapens the efforts of everyone else attempting to put out some original, or at least high quality, material. Ferruggia is a noted plagiarizer, and apparently felt it was perfectly acceptable to recycle his old material and market it as something new. What agitates me the most is that he apparently feels the vast majority of people who might purchase his materials are stupid.
In the introduction he states how he had many different projects going at once. I cannot see how he'd call a massive cut and paste Word document a "project", but there you go. In particular, I've really got to doubt the credibility of anyone he's thanked, except his mother, unless they didn't realize that he was recycling all this material.
And, finally, to illustrate how detail oriented Jason Ferruggia is, he lists a blog related to this book on the back of the cover. http://fittofightbook.blogspot.com
Guess who registered that domain after surfing there a few days ago?
Great job covering your bases, Jay.
I'd like to thank my amigo Douglas for sending me his copy of this book.
Very, very humorous 
One clowny for J.